Absorbed with events that threaten or discredit our way of life
— raging jihadists seeking the hardware and software of
Armageddon, epidemic infectious disease, the meltdown of
industries, the debates over Gitmo and waterboarding, and rampant
and loud anti-Americanism from friends and foes alike — it is
easy to miss that there is actually some good news out there for
democracy.
What has happened is that a dynasty without royals has spoken:
India has engineered a dignified statement that democracy
matters.
About 400 million Indians voted to maintain the United
Progressive Alliance (UPA), a Congress Party-led coalition under
the leadership of current Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh.
Further, Rahul Gandhi, son of Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi
(President of the Congress Party also known as the Indian
National Congress), grandson of Indira Gandhi, and great grandson
of Jawaharlal Nehru, is being positioned for the cabinet and a
possible orderly succession when the popular and successful Mr.
Singh, 76, retires from public life. While both Indira and Rajiv
Gandhi were controversial in their own ways, Indian modern and
ancient history contain examples of a fascination with the cult
of personality.
Downplaying cries for vengeance against Pakistan from the Hindu
right, a mature electorate turned out over a period of several
weeks to acknowledge and maintain an economically liberal status
quo that has put several hundred million people into the middle
class in less than a generation. This voice of democracy at work
sent the Mumbai stock exchange index up 17% in one day.
The rightist Bharatiya Janata Party has lost influence, as have
the Communists in the lower house of parliament, the Lok Sabha,
which has 543 seats. The Congress Party, while itself short of a
majority, now has enough support to form and lead a robust
alliance, without the need to seek support from the left to
maintain its governing role.
This is good news for America and the West. It means an even more
self-assured India, one that will continue to open its borders to
trade and capital flows. It will continue the process of diluting
the massively bureaucratic and regulatory role of the Government
of India, a Leviathan of central planning that impeded economic
development for more than four decades after independence in
1947.
India is in the front lines of the war against Islamist
extremism. Stability at the Centre, as the Government of India is
known, is essential for India’s support of the West’s efforts to
prevail against global jihad. In view of its 150 million Muslims
who are for the most part Indians first, India has some moral
authority as a secular example of diversity and inclusiveness.
With its armed forces ranking among the world’s top five in terms
of size, India is emerging as an increasingly valuable military
ally in the region, its maritime interests extending from the
Strait of Malacca to the Persian Gulf — in some part, a
strategic offset to China.
What is equally interesting is what has not happened in India.
India has the forces of anger and despair that we see in the
Islamic world, with huge, alienated youthful populations for whom
there is nothing to do and nowhere to go. They are outside the
measured agricultural, services, and industrial economy and by
some estimates, about 750 million people live on less than $2.00
per day — and for them, globalization means only sad
comparisons.
But to get elected, the Congress Party did not have to blame the
West for India’s low per capita GDP. Nor did it invoke the names
of God to manipulate passions and justify itself. Indian youth
are not encouraged to commandeer the streets with AK-47s, and
students do not recite anti-western teachings. And there is not
much of an angry street to feed the 24/7 cameras of CNN.
To state that the challenges to absorb more people into the
economic mainstream of India are enormous is a gross
understatement. Some experts believe India needs a high single
digit rate of growth to achieve more transformation. This is
impossible to achieve under current world conditions — and
difficult to sustain as in recent years. But we should take stock
that amidst all the world’s tumult, occasionally the forces of
reason and light can prevail.
